Globalization and relentless world population increase force a consequent rising trend in real estate prices, especially acute in central and prestigious areas of large cities, for example.
The constant growth in demand, shortage of available land for construction, and the inexorable industrialization and modernization of large populations (e.g. China, India) serve to exacerbate the problem of s parking spaces and to increase the price of parking a vehicle.
The necessity for parking spaces stands out in business centers (market segment A), commercial centers (market segment B) and residential areas (market segment C), and in combinations thereof. It will be appreciated that there are other areas which suffer from parking space shortages and in which allocating physical resources for additional parking areas is a challenge, especially considering the amount of space that is required for parking each car and allowing access in and out of the car.
Apart from the need to make the most out of the precious area of land that is allocated for parking cars, as an example, or for mass storage in the broader sense, there is an issue of providing efficient service, such that a vehicle (as an example) wishing to enter or exit a parking facility are delayed as little as possible. In this context it is noted that different storage facilities and parking facilities in particular have recurring service patterns which are characterized by different storage and removal rates at specific times of day. A parking complex for a business center, for example, should be capable of handling the reception of a large inflow of vehicles to be stored at the beginning of the workday, should be capable of providing a large storage space utilization during the workday without severely compromising service time, and should be capable of handling the release of a large flow of vehicles at the end of the workday.
A parking complex for a commercial center (market segment B) should be capable of handling the reception of a large flow of vehicles in a short period of time at the beginning of the workday, should be capable of providing short service time for simultaneous reception/release of vehicles during the workday, and should be capable of handling the release of a large flow of vehicles in a short period of time at the end of the workday.
A parking complex for a residential center (market segment C) should be capable of handling the release of a large flow of vehicles in a short period of time at the beginning of the workday, should be capable of providing rapid simultaneous reception/release of vehicles throughout the day, and good storage space utilization during the night. All of the above systems must also of course deal with some degree of storage and removal episodes occurring at random times throughout the day and possibly night, and will preferably provide a minimized wait time for removal of a stored item.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,669,753 provides an automated parking garage which simultaneously parks and retrieves multiple vehicles. Upon being granted entry, a customer parks his/her vehicle on a pallet near the garage entrance and leaves the facility. In single floor designs, the pallet is carried by a self-propelled carrier to a parking space by a series of longitudinal and transverse movements on rails. A multiple story embodiment employs a lifting device that includes a pallet support member that shuttles back and forth between two contiguous floors. Each pallet is carried by a carrier to a lifting device and each lifting device has mechanical arms that support the carrier until the pallet support member deploys and independently supports the pallet to enable withdrawal of the carrier from the lifting device. Another carrier, stationed on an upper floor, retrieves the vehicle-supporting pallet from the lifting device and delivers it to its assigned parking space. Insertion and retrieval of multiple vehicles occurs simultaneously so that the formation of queues of vehicles entering the facility is minimized.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,851,921 provides an automated parking garage comprising a multi-floor building having a plurality of vehicle storage racks in a storage area for storing loaded or unloaded pallets. The entrance-level floor of the building includes an entry/exit station for receiving a vehicle. The garage includes a pallet stacking station for storing the unloaded pallets, located over a shuttle aisle that extends under the entry/exit station. A pallet shuttle traverses the shuttle aisle to a first position under the entry/exit station for handling the unloaded pallet in the entry/exit station, and to a second position under the pallet stacking station for stacking the unloaded pallet. The garage also includes a transport system for transporting the loaded pallet in the storage area.
PCT no. WO07/135,655 (or application no. PCT/IL2006/000589) discloses a system and a method of enabling storage and retrieval of objects. The system includes a storage space, an insertion/extraction block and a controller. The storage includes a plurality of storage blocks. Each of said storage blocks is configured to receive an object for storage thereon. The insertion/extraction blocks are configured to allow an insertion/extraction unit to insert and extract objects from the storage space.
The following application relates to the service level—or in other words to the level of reception and extraction of cargo.
In spite of the above, there is still a long felt need for a novel method and system of enabling retrieval and receiving of objects for enabling storage which is accomplished using a minimum space and requires minimal time due to a matrix layout. Furthermore, there is a long felt need for a system and method of retrieval and accommodation of objects without imposing any restrictions on the type of object stored in said system.